Savory Corn and Pepper Muffins

This week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe was selected by Rebecca at Ezra Pound Cake. This was a well-welcomed relief from the fleet of sweets I've been ingesting courtesy of the Dorie group. These muffins are stuffed with mildly spicy flavor.

Packed inside each of these muffins (made with both flour and cornmeal for an added savory flavor) are fresh corn kernels, cilantro, baby bell peppers, and dried California Chili pods. I went with baby bell peppers instead of one red one because I like the more varied colors presented by using multiple small ones, and used the dried California Chili pod instead of a jalapeño because...well, I was lazy and I had a bunch of these in my cupboard anyway. I knew the muffins just needed some spice, so one of these larger pods would bring a more subtle spice, but would add a lot of flavor.

These savory muffins are definitely a hit. Its times like these that I ask myself why I don't bake muffins more often - they're always full of little goodies, and rare is a batch come across that doesn't taste delicious. Now I know that this book does savory just as well as it's always done sweet.

Recipe: Baking: From My Home to Yours, by Dorie Greenspan, p. 6

Lavash Crackers and Guacamole

This month, Daring Bakers went towards a savory route. It also went fairly simple, with a recipe of lavash crackers and a vegan dip of our choice. For those that don't know, veganism is having a diet using no animal-produced products whatsoever. It excludes butter, gelatin, honey, that sort of thing. The lavash was very simple to make, and the fastest dip I could think of was guacamole.

I actually made a few batches of this dough. The first time I rolled out the dough, I rolled it too thin and it ended up being a hard cracker. I wanted something softer, more bread-like, so I tried a second time to great success. The third was just last night - I needed something to eat some leftover hummus with. Because it's quick to throw together and bake, it's perfect for that sort of situation.

Recipe -
Lavash

1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon dry instant yeast
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons water
Toppings of choice

In a stand mixer bowl, combine flour, salt, yeast, sugar, and olive oil, and add 1/2 cup of water. Knead with a hook attachment until the dough comes together. If necessary, add 1 teaspoon of water at a time until the dough forms a ball. If it feels a bit too wet, you can add some extra flour. Knead for 10 minutes, or until you can pinch a bit of dough, stretch it, and see light coming through before it breaks (shows that enough gluten has formed). Place into a bowl and cover with a tea towel, and allow it to proof for 90 minutes. Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Punch down the dough and divide in half. On a piece of parchment paper, roll the halves into 8-inch (21-cm) circles. Add the toppings of your choice (I kept it simple, using a heavy pinch of kosher salt). While still on the parchment paper, place onto a baking sheet and move into the preheated oven. Bake for 6 minutes, then using a spatula, flip the lavash over (if your toppings aren't pressed into the dough, skip this step). Bake an additional 6 minutes, then remove from the oven and allow to cool on a rack. Slice into shapes of your choice (I made pie slices, resulting in 12 wedges). Serve at room temperature with dip of your choice.


Simple Guacamole

3 medium avocados
2 bell peppers (yellow, orange, or red for extra color), sliced
1/2 medium white onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
Juice of 1 lime
1 handful cilantro
Salt and pepper to taste

Cut the avocados in half, remove the pit, and spoon out fruit into a medium bowl. Mash with a potato masher, or a large fork. Add the bell peppers, onion, garlic, lime juice. Stir until it's mixed together well. Add cilantro to taste, then salt and pepper. Mix together and cover with a piece of plastic wrap - press right against the surface of the guacamole to prevent oxidation and discoloration. Place into the refrigerator and let sit for at least 1 hour so the flavors have a chance to meld. Spoon into a serving bowl and serve with crackers.

I tried a pinch of the raw dough to get an idea of its taste, and noticed it was on the sweet side. I decided to make a quick dessert lavash out of the remaining half of the dough, so rolled it out and baked it plain. Following a simple dessert my brother and I used to do with flour tortillas as kids, I ran a stick of butter over the top of the hot lavash (NO, not the whole stick went in...it's just easier to hold a whole stick), then topped with a 50-50 mix of cinnamon and sugar. Cut into 12 wedges again, and served warm. It would be great with a simple ice cream.

Variations on this one are endless. There are several toppings you can place onto the savory lavash - poppy seeds, cumin, oregano, anything that won't burn too easily in the oven. You could even bake one and make a mini-pizza out of it. Serve with mango salsa, hummus, any sort of dip you think will match your topping well. Similarly with the sweet version, there are various toppings you can add and side-dishes to serve with. The overall premise of this recipe is simple, and can be adapted to your liking.

Buttermilk Biscuits

Whenever I have some extra buttermilk laying around, I love making these biscuits. This recipe has been tried several times, and delicious fluffy biscuits are always the end result.

Recipe:
2 c. all-purpose flour
4 t. baking powder
1/4 t. baking soda
large pinch, salt
1 T. butter
3 T. shortening
1 c. buttermilk

Preheat oven to 350ºF. Mix dry ingredients together, then cut in fats with a pastry cutter, two butter knives, or just use your fingers like I do. There is no need to cut the fats until they are tiny, just make sure that there are no pieces larger than the size of a raisin left behind. Add the buttermilk and fold with a spoon until just combined - do not over-mix! Turn out onto a floured surface.

Roll into a 1"-thick round, then cut with a 3" round cookie cutter. Alternatively, you can scoop the dough into a baking sheet directly from mixing bowl (this is how I normally bake them, as it gives a nice texture on the tops of the biscuits). Cut 12 biscuits out of the dough - hopefully there won't be much left over, or your biscuits are going to come out short.

Position the biscuits on a baking sheet so they are just touching each other at the edge. This ensures that they rise straight up. Dent the top of the biscuit with your thumb (something I forgot to do until close to the end). If you are spooning the dough straight to the baking sheet, the biscuits do not need to be touching each other or dented. Bake for 20 minutes, then move directly to a cooling rack. Allow to cool a few minutes before eating. Yields 1 dozen biscuits.

If you want biscuits with more butter flavor, you can substitute add more butter and take out the shortening, though it will make the biscuits shorter and a little crispier. This basic buttermilk biscuit recipe is like an empty canvas when it comes to exploring other flavors. Using this recipe, I've adapted to make cheesy biscuits, rosemary biscuits, oregano biscuits - and it's easy to make all of them. Biscuits and gravy were always a favorite of mine when I was young, so I'm sure I'll get around to making a batch of that as well.

Danish Braid

This month's Daring Bakers challenge was to create laminated dough and form at least one danish braid. Since there is enough dough for two, I decided to make both a savory and a sweet one.

The sweet one was filled with a mixture of black raspberries and ricotta, heated with sugar and vanilla to form a jam-like consistency. Because options of fillings can vary so much with these danishes, it's a great way to clean out the refrigerator (I happened to have the raspberries and ricotta sitting in the fridge, and couldn't think of what else to do with them). This one was a great breakfast or dessert snack, with friends and family loving it.

I was planning on doing another sweet danish after the first received such good reviews, but then a friend of mine requested I make something savory for a potluck. I decided to just use the rest of the danish dough I had laying around, and filled it with ham, gruyere cheese, mixed greens, and grilled white onions.

I got compliments at the party, but personally didn't like how it came out. The gruyere was much more pungent than I was expecting (and it wasn't my first time using this type of cheese, so it could very well have been the brand). If I were to do this again, I'd definitely use something a bit more fitting, perhaps a simple cheddar or provolone.

Recipe:
Detrempe (dough):
1 T. active dry yeast
1/2 c. whole milk
1/3 c. sugar
zest of 2 small lemons
1 1/2 t. vanilla extract
1/2 vanilla bean, split and scraped
2 large eggs (cold)
1/4 c. lemon juice
3 1/4 c. all-purpose flour
1 t. salt

Combine yeast and milk in a stand mixer with paddle attachment, and stir at low speed for a few minutes until creamy. Rub together the lemon zest and sugar until homogenous and VERY fragrant - a little tip I picked up from Dorie Greenspan's book (will make the whole area smell like lemons, it's great).

Slowly add this sugar to the stirring yeast mixture along with the vanilla extract and scrapped innards of the bean, eggs, and lemon juice. After it is well mixed, remove the paddle and add the hook attachment. Add the salt and flour, 1 cup at a time, while mixing at low speed. Once all the flour is incorporated, increase speed to medium and knead for 5 minutes, or until a smooth dough ball forms. Add flour as necessary 1T at a time until the dough is not sticky. Transfer to a baking sheet and cover with plastic wrap, then refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Beurrage (butter brick):
2 sticks (16 T.) unsalted butter, room temperature
1/4 c. all-purpose flour

With a paddle attachment in a stand mixer, beat the flour and butter together until a smooth paste forms. Scrape the sides and attachment of the bowl, and beat again to make sure everything is incorporated.

Take the detrempe out of the refrigerator, and move to a floured surface. Roll into a rectangle, approximately 18"x13" and 1/4" thick. If sticky, dust lightly with flour. Spread the beurrage evenly over two thirds of this.

Fold in letter fashion, so the unbuttered third goes halfway into the buttered side (left to right), then the remaining buttered dough is folded on top of this new fold (right to left). Should be left with a rectangle 6"x13". Refrigerate for 30 minutes to firm the butter, then remove and roll the dough into another 18"x13" rectangle (the long point - 13" - will remain the long point - 18" - on this new roll; in other words, when the next folds come, the sides that were previously open should be closed). Fold in the same manner as before to make a 6"x13" rectangle. This is now the second turn. Repeat until 4 turns have been completed, refrigerating 30 minutes between each turn. When the final turn is done, refrigerate for at least 5 hours.

Raspberry and ricotta filling:
1 c. black raspberries
1/4 vanilla bean, split and scraped
1/2 c. sugar
1/4 c. ricotta

The raspberries were previously frozen, so there was no need to mash them to get the juices flowing. Added all the ingredients in a small pot and stirred periodically over medium-high heat. Continue heating until most of the liquid has come off, leaving you with a filling the consistency of jam.

Forming the braid:
Remove the dough from the refrigerator and cut in half. Wrap up the remaining dough and store airtight in freezer, or refrigerator if it will be used within a few days. Roll the dough into a 14"x17" rectangle (does not need to be exact). Make diagonal cuts into the dough on the lengthwise side, going a bit more than 1/4 of the way into the center (I cut a bit too far into it my first go-around, so don't go as far in as the cuts pictured - also, I did thicker braids my second time).

Pour on the raspberry filling, and spread evenly on the uncut surface.

Tuck in the top and bottom ends (forgot to do that with this first braid), then start braiding by folding one of the right braids to the center, covering it with a braid from the left, covering that with a braid from the right, and repeat until the last braid has crossed. At this point, you can brush the top with an egg wash (1 egg yolk + 1 egg), though I avoided this and my braid still browned nicely. Spray cooking spray onto plastic wrap and cover the braid, then proof at room temperature for approximately 2 hours (could take longer or shorter depending on the temperature of your house - wait until it is risen and very soft to the touch). Towards the end of proofing, preheat oven to 400ºF. Bake the braid for 10 minutes, then pull out of the oven and rotate front to back, left to right, before putting back in. Decrease temperature to 350ºF and bake for another 10-20 minutes until crispy (mine was complete after 10). Once golden brown and delicious, remove from oven and allow to cool.

The savory filling is easy enough. I opened a small pack of ham and stacked it until it evenly covered the uncut dough, covered with a medium layer of gruyere cheese, roughly chopped a handful of greens and placed on top, followed by 1/3 of an onion, sliced and grilled.

As before, tuck in the ends and then cross over the cuts to form the braid.

Allow to proof as specified above, and bake in the same manner. Once complete, cut and serve. I prefer to cut between the braids if I can, so a clean cut and nice presentation is observed, but this can be difficult due to the nature of the braiding.

Remember, the fillings on these braids are completely up to you. The important part is to learn how to correctly make the laminated dough, and find out how to handle it. Once the method of laminated dough is learned, there are several pastry goodies you can make, such as croissants, moulins (windmills), turnovers, et cetera. With the various fillings available, the possibilities really are endless.